Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of data handling system communication, and, more particularly, to cooperative task execution. Still more particularly, embodiments of the inventive subject matter relate to sharing of resources in a docked mobile environment.
Portable data handling systems such as smartphones, smartbooks, personal digital assistants (PDAs), palmtop computers, slate computers, tablet computers, netbooks, ultrabooks, and notebook computers have become ubiquitous. Increases in portability and battery life provided by such portable systems frequently require a concomitant reduction in processing power. Recent attempts to address the reduced computing capabilities found in such portable data handling systems have focused on increasing the input/output capabilities of smartphones or tablets by providing physical keyboards and displays. These conventional docking systems typically suffer from a number of shortcomings however as they typically depend on the processing capabilities of the more portable (and therefore less powerful in terms of processing power) device, they do not provide complete devices which are all useable independently of one another, and they do not provide for the capability to dock and undock systems rapidly without catastrophic effects on executing applications or other processing tasks.